this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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[–] harsh3466@lemmy.ml 142 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Is this law broad enough to also catch up Proton and its services?

This attack by governments on encryption is getting more and more concerning.

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 65 points 2 days ago

They want less accountability for themselves so they can get away with more corruption.

I hope people take notes.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 day ago

Is this law broad enough to also catch up Proton and its services?

They don't need a law, they already logged and complied on request

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-address-of-french-activist-after-order-by-swiss-authorities/

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 46 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And gobbles Trump's knob publicly.

They won't need a law to force compliance.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah, to be honest if you need to hide from the government, don't use Proton. Actually, don't use email.

Proton is good for hiding from Google and Facebook, and not having a life full of ads.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Sci-fi writing in here I see

EDIT: For the downvoters:

  • He clearly didn't support Trump in general, but he did praise Trump's pick for the antitrust position.
  • Proton code for the clients is opensource, so it's not possible to add backdoors without being discovered (encryption happens in the clients).
  • Proton business model is inherently disincentivizing them to do so. They are a profitable company with a clear profile that would lose so many customers if they decide to do so.
  • Proton is incorporated in Switzerland, it's unclear what the benefit would be to "appease" Trump.
  • Proton is controlled by a nonprofit. In the board of this nonprofit there are people like Carissa Veliz (author of "Privacy is power") and Tim Berners Lee. So even if Andy Yen was a full on MAGA, he still wouldn't have autonomy to decide that. Note that he ceded control himself.
  • There is absolutely nothing in the history of Proton that suggests they would be open to backdooring their software.
  • There is a long track record of choices to protect users' privacy. This also includes yearly substantial donations to nonprofits who work in this space.

If this is not enough, I don't know what is, but for sure the baseless accusations of a random user shouldn't be enough as well.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

He clearly didn’t support Trump in general

lie

so it’s not possible to add backdoors

lie

Proton business model is inherently disincentivizing them to do so. They are a profitable company with a clear profile that would lose so many customers if they decide to do so.

Didn't work on you

Proton is incorporated in Switzerland, it’s unclear what the benefit would be to “appease” Trump.

Straw man

So even if Andy Yen was a full on MAGA, he still wouldn’t have autonomy to decide that.

being a non profit and him owning enough of it to do what he wants are unrelated.

There is absolutely nothing in the history of Proton that suggests they would be open to backdooring their software.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-address-of-french-activist-after-order-by-swiss-authorities/

There is a long track record of choices to protect users’ privacy.

Tell that french activist they turned logging on for and gave up to the authorities.

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If y'all are expecting (and relying on) legal businesses to tell police raiding their offices to fuck off, then you clearly don't understand secops.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

If they go after encryption in earnest there's not going to be any room for secops left.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

lie

We have the tweet, the context, his direct statements saying he didn't. You have your own interpretation. See also https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

so it’s not possible to add backdoor

lie

Quoting an incomplete sentence is peak bad faith. Please, elaborate on how they can backdoor the email communication without the change be visible in the clients. Take a proton to proton communication, and show me how they can backdoor the PGP encryption. I will propose 2 ways:

  • maliciously patch the JS code of the webmail client, which will show the change in the browser, network communications etc.
  • simply backdoor the client which will make it visible in the repo.

Didn't work on you

Because they didn't do anything that indicates they are violating my privacy. If they would, I would redirect my domain and drop them in a blink of an eye.

Straw man

It's not a strawman lol. Pointing out the fact that it's not evident what the advantage would be is an actual argument against saying that they would backdoor the software in compliance with trump's wishes. Asking what the benefit is for such an immoral and illegal action seems reasonable to me?

being a non profit and him owning enough of it to do what he wants are unrelated

False. He gave away his stocks of the for profit company, which is now controlled by the nonprofit where he is 1 out of 5 (or 6?) In the board. A decision like this realistically will need to be approved by the board. Explain how he "owns enough to do what he wants" please.

Tell that french activist they turned logging on for and gave up to the authorities.

what would you expect any organization could do in that position? If there is a culprit there, it is the government. Complying with legal orders (which BTW they are transparent about and they challenge lots of them too) is a requirement for a company to operate. There are 2 cases that I know of so far (in the other they have been forced to give all the data they had about a user, and the only data they gave was a recovery email address), and they are 100% expected. Unless you want to be a rogue organization, there is nothing you can do in those cases. This if anything is a good test that shows how little data they collect or have. Unfortunately for logs of VPN connection there is no technical solution that will ever prevent from logging data again (mullvad is now experimenting with a double tunnel, but that is just a small nuisance for law enforcement), like there is for encryption (I.e., encryption happened with keys we cannot retrieve, sorry can't help you).

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 0 points 21 hours ago

k, moderator wants to censor my calling you out on trolling, LET's PLAY!

We have the tweet, the context, his direct statements saying he didn’t.

You just cited an opinion piece written by the PR department of Proton (https://medium.com/@ovenplayer) one article, 0 followers.

We do have the tweet. All of them in fact. They back up my claims.

The other person you commented on already addressed this and you just downvoted him without any rebuttal.

Quoting an incomplete sentence is peak bad faith. Please, elaborate on how they can backdoor the email communication without the change be visible in the clients

Backdoor is on the server side. For you to mention a backdoor on the webclient makes me thing you don't actually know how all this works. where they store your email. They already busted an activist for the french government by changing their backend terms.

Because they didn’t do anything that indicates they are violating my privacy

They violated other peoples privacy, but I see, if they don't violate yours to your face, it didn't happen?

It’s not a strawman lol.

no one claimed it in the first place, that makes it a straw man.

what would you expect any organization could do in that position?

If you're going to bust people, be open about it up front, Here we have people like you fighting as hard as they can to say how incredibly private they are simply becuase they said so . You bought into their propaganda so far that you're willing to ignore anything done wrong by them and continue to claim how secure they are.

I maintain that you are either a PR plant for Proton, or just Trolling us.

Civil enough mods?

[–] yyprum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How dare you go against the lemmy hive mind. We need to shit on Proton or you will be punished with negative numbers!

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

you will be punished with negative numbers!

Thanks for making me chuckle.

[–] chaoticnumber@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wanted to reply to your points but someone beat me to it.

Learn to think critically. Close the app for a day, cool off and re-read all of these replies.

Do you think we would all just dump on something for the fun of it or just to piss you off? This isnt reddit.

Cmon man, take a second, look around and understand that the taste of boot leather is not very pleasant. Proton is not here for your privacy ... I mean it is, unless you're a french journalist ... or a person of interest for the right people.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"Learn to think critically, ignore the actual facts you put together to explicit your actual reasoning, trust the fact that if 10 people down vote you or argue with you, you must be wrong"

I can't see any problem with this logic.

Yes, I think plenty of people are incompetent or just terminally online and see purity testing as a form of political activism. The fact this is not reddit doesn't mean much.

that the taste of boot leather is not very pleasant.

Q.e.d.

Let me tell you from my socialist perspective why this is absurd. Defending an organization that is an underdog in the industry, that creates product that don't harm users, that pushes for the right values (privacy) and at the same time developed a healthy business model (no VC funding, privately owned, but also no cloud usage that reduces costs and keep the money in the EU/EEA, no delocalization) is in my interests, because it is a step in the right direction within a toxic and harmful industry. You call this boolicking? Go ahead, for me it is actually a political success if more orgs like proton succeed and outcompete big tech.

unless you're a french journalist ... or a person of interest for the right people.

There is no org that can defend you from the law being applied. If that organization wants to exist they have to comply with the law. In all those cases we should blame the government for abusing laws (like antiterrorism laws for that environmental activist). Also in neither of those cases (I am aware of 2) any mail data has been disclosed (IP addresses for VPN connection they have been forced to log and recovery address, respectively).

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Yes, what possible benefit could a Swiss company that sells privacy might receive from cozing up to a fascist state?

Lies about what the CEO said with the official account.

One of his direct statements btw:

"10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.”

Thinks non-profit is anything but a tax status. Hasn't paid enough attention to all the "non-profit" companies switching to for-profit as soon as it's financially convenient, much less the "non-profits" that only exist to funnel money to their overpaid executives.

Doesn't realize that Proton's biggest security vulnerability is Proton the organization.

Fucking lol. Actual clown shit trying to bait people into the honeypot.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, I don't get if these are Proton PR bots, or they're just heavily invested in the company and are in denial. They just take that PR, add some flourish then a bunch of unrelated BS.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Neither.

I elaborated on my reasons on a comment above.

It's also called critical thinking for me, which means I don't get influenced by whatever the new scandal in the fediverse is for who is a bad guy, and I try to think for myself. Being a security engineer I also think to possess some competencies when it comes to understand technical setup and topics like encryption, so again, I don't take other people opinions (possibly unqualified) as gospel.

That said, I have specifically listed some points to back my own side, disagreeing with those (which would be nice to elaborate on) doesn't make other people PR bots or corporate fanboys. This is a mental shortcut to avoid challenging your own opinion IMHO. I am not suggesting everyone here is a google shill aiming to sabotage valid competitors, for example.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 day ago

It's not called critical thinking it's called being a troll. And I'm not respond to you with anything but this statement.

"It is harder to convince someone they have been tricked than to trick them in the first place" and such.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

A long comment that doesn't say anything.

Yes, what possible benefit could a Swiss company that sells privacy might receive from cozing up to a fascist state?

Yes. What? Is Trump going to send them customers? Money directly? What is the benefit. If it is so obvious to you, state it clearly.

One of his direct statements btw

Quoted out of context. Yes, he thinks that Republicans are more likely to fight against big tech. Stupid? Naive? Probably. But it still doesn't mean supporting Republicans in general (or Trump). BTW, don't take my word for it, he explicitly elaborated that point in a reddit comment.

Thinks non-profit is anything but a tax status.

Imagine lol Proton is still a for profit company (tax status muh) but it is controlled by a nonprofit, which means that the steering wheel of the for profit company is in the hands of an organization with no profit motive, with a solid board. Now let me hear the mental gymnastic about tax status.

Doesn't realize that Proton's biggest security vulnerability is Proton the organization.

Again a sentence that doesn't mean anything. You want to explicitly say what this threat model means? Go ahead. Throwing things like this is pointless.

Actual clown shit trying to bait people into the honeypot.

Keep your tinfoil hat, I don't care. I am not promoting even, I am stating some facts about the fact that it seems very unlikely that Proton will backdoor their encryption for no reason but to please Trump.

[–] philpo@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Proton is a company claiming to operate under Swiss law (which is doubtful,as the company itself is US based).

Sadly Swiss data privacy laws are shit and it's intelligence agencies are known for overreach, especially when it comes to cross border data traffic.